May 5

What’s wrong with this story? While I respect the reporters dread of cultural diversity I don’t like his coded headline, which makes an inference to the n-word. The reporter, Mika Malmberg, shows us the artistic side of his abhorrence to the ever changing ethnic face of Helsinki. Since the N-line train passes by the northern Helsinki neighborhood of Tapanila, where a gang rape occurred in March, he dwells on it and gives a furious blow to the Somali community of Finland by citing an incomplete study that anti-immigrant politicians and parties like the Perussuomalaiset use to victimize all Somalis and visible migrants. Life must be tough for Malmberg for seeing so much ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in one visual gulp on a commuter train. If I could I’d write a similar story about being on the V-line train (the v would be code for v***u in Finnish or f**k in English) and how it feels to be on a train with only white Finns. Some of them would be drunk while others would be staring silently into the abyss.